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Hidden Leopard goodies

updated 08:10 pm EDT, Fri October 26, 2007

Hidden Leopard goodies

Writing for the New York Times, David Pogue points out a number of nice features in Leopard that Apple neglected to mention in its "300 feature" round-up. Among them: the ability to locate menu items directly from the Help menu's search field; faster Spotlight returning of application listings, which allows it to be used as an application launcher more effectively, and the ability to enter equations into Spotlight's search field and perform calculations. There are other Spotlight enhancements as well. You can search the included dictionary from within Spotlight and more.

Grid spacing makes its return from Mac OS 9, allowing you to control how close icons sit together in windows. Every document icon in Leopard appears as a preview of what's in it (the first page of a Word document, for instance).

Also, Time Machine works in iPhoto (for finding lost photos), Address Book (for accidentally deleted contacts), and Mail (recovering deleted e-mail). Pogue writes: "each time you click the Jump Back arrow, the window before you changes to reveal the way it looked the last time your photo library, address book file, or e-mail stash changed. You can also drag through the timeline on the right if you remember the date when things went wrong."

Earlier today we posted our first impressions of Leopard as well as roundup of news, insights, and tidbits (other application specific updates can be tracked using our search, while virtualization developers Parallels said its software is Leopard-ready, while VMware has offered a v1.1 release candidate for Leopard.) We also have a screenshot gallery of some of the new features.

 
Previous Comments

not mentioned?

10/27, 10:00am reply

The calculator feature in Spotlight and the use of boolean operands are specifically mentioned by Apple in its list of 300 features!

Feathers

Forum Regular

Joined: Oct 1999

0

re. not mentioned

10/27, 11:06am reply

So is the faster Spotlight results for applications. Right there on Apple's website. Did you read that first, Mr. Pogue?

trevj

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Dec 1999

0

Variable grid spacing

10/28, 01:34am reply

Anything useful from OS9 and even further back is welcome and acknowledges Apple continuity -- refreshing since there is a noted trend of "Apple-nesia" in recent marketing push which forgets backward compatibility, useful fetaures and the like. Hope that slows up.

Loren

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2001

0

re: re. not mentioned

10/29, 08:21am reply

Other than David Pogue being Captain Obvious and MacNN being idiots for quoting him - the Time Machine functionality is system-wide - so theoretically it should work in the Address Book - iCal and most any other App_

But since Apple only mentioned that and did not demo how Time Machine could be used everywhere on the system - like they did with a basic Finder Demo - then I can see the confusion_ Morons_

UberFu

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2002

0

Back from the past

10/29, 01:17pm reply

Making a comeback is the black Apple logo for the Apple menu. That hasn't been there since system 6. It's fugly.

bjojade

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2007

0

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